OT- Rove! Rove! Rove! &, oh yeah, this other little item

Saturday, July 23, 2005 1:11 p.m. EDT
Report: Justice Department Probing Durbin, Rockefeller CIA Leak

The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into
whether
Democratic Senators *** Durbin, Jay Rockefeller and Ron Wyden leaked
details about a secret "black ops" CIA satellite program last December
in a
move that may have seriously compromised national security, former
Deputy
Undersecretary of Defense Jed Babbin said on Saturday.

"The CIA made a request to the Justice Department to investigate and
possibly bring criminal charges against these three [senators]," Babbin
told
WABC Radio host Monica Crowley. "My information is that investigation
is
ongoing." Mr. Rockefeller is the Vice Chairman of the Senate
Intelligence
Committee and Mr. Durbin is the number two ranking Democrat in the
Senate.

Media reports on the satellite leak last December indicated that the
Bush
administration was concerned about public comments by Durbin,
Rockefeller
and Wyden and that the CIA had requested a Justice Department probe.

"The formal request for a leaks investigation would target people who
described sensitive details about a new generation of spy satellites to
The
Washington Post, which published a page-one story about the espionage
program Saturday [Dec. 11, 2004]," a Justice Department official told
the
Associated Press at the time.

But the same official told the AP that Justice "has not decided whether
to
investigate."

Former Deputy Undersecretary Babbin's comments on Saturday were the
first
indication that such a probe was actually launched and is ongoing.

"The fact of the matter is that [Durbin, Rockefeller and Wyden]
divulged
something that was above and beyond top secret and frankly, they
probably
blew the strategy and the hundreds of millions of dollars that were
being
spent to pursue it," he told Crowley.

"The acknowledgement of [the "black ops" program's] existence is not
even
proper and the acknowledgement of them and the details of them can very
well
damage national security," Babbin added.

Asked if he thought the three Senate Democrats should have their
security
clearances revoked for the duration of the leak probe, the former
Defense
Department official said, "Absolutely and forthwith. I mean, they
should
have been revoked at the time of the leak."

"There's really not much doubt about the leak having occurred," Babbin
told
Crowley. "It's in the press records, it's in the Congressional record.
We
know what they did."

"The only question," he explained, "is how much damage was done by the
leak.
And that's part of the criminal investigation right now - to do a
damage
assessment, to figure out how much this is going to cost us
strategically
and militarily."

http://newsmax.com/archives/ic /2005/7/23/131312.shtml

.

Loading